


Gave Once Her Flowers to Love

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Seasonal Imagery, Sibling Incest, Triple Drabble, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26727997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Three moments in which the Blake brothers loved each other.
Relationships: Joseph Blake/Tom Blake
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	Gave Once Her Flowers to Love

I. 

In the first spring of the war, Joseph Blake got leave to come home to the white-petalled cherry trees of home, to the orchard he’d missed so much. It was a bright day with a hazy blue sky, and he sat with Tom beneath the crooked tree, trying to feel brotherly. But in the end, he needn’t have bothered, because it was Tom who took Joseph’s face in his hands and kissed him, hesitant and sloppy, in the rain of fallen flowers. For an ephemeral moment, they could both forget about the war, embraced by springtime and by each other. 

II. 

Tom enlisted in winter, when the trees were bare and spindly beneath a frosted sky. He left England under that same grey sheet of clouds for the mud and madness of the Western Front, hoping against hope that he might find his brother. He didn’t, but on nights when he could dream despite the roaring of the guns, it was of Joseph that Tom dreamed. Dreaming of his brother kept each night a little warmer, and if Tom couldn’t share a kiss, or woke guilty, in his own come, it was only a stopgap. He knew he’d see Joseph soon. 

III. 

Joseph Blake returned from the war a changed man. There was a limp in his step from an injury a week before the armistice, and a ghost by his side. By the time he’d come home, it was already spring, and the trees burst into bloom, just as they had on the day. But Tom was gone, or perhaps he haunted Joseph’s steps as he walked to the tree where once they’d sat together, where once they’d kissed. Tom was gone, but the trees in their blossoming glory remained, and Joseph sat on the ground, finally allowing himself to weep. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love this pairing, and was really quite determined to rectify the woeful lack of fic for it by contributing a little drabble series! 
> 
> Title from Rupert Brooke's 'The Soldier', because I am nothing if not a cliche when it comes to my fic titling habits.


End file.
